Impossible For Me to Predict

Can you predict how your mood will be tomorrow? 

How about your business next week? 

Life is constantly surprising us, yet we are forced to make judgments based on flawed data and bouncing emotions.

I sold the building that my father built for our used machine tool firm in the mid-1980s. The decision was based on sluggish business and having had heart bypass surgery 10 years earlier. I took a five-year lease on half of the building figuring that if I was still alive in 2024, I would be in no mood to continue to fight used machinery battles.

Now I have to get out of the building that has been my home for over 40 years and choose whether to stay in the game, and if so, where to move the iron and our offices.

It has been keeping me up at night for more than a year. Change is tough, especially when it affects the lives of people you have worked with for decades and how you will live the days you have left.

The moment of decision creeps up on you month by month, day by day. It only seems to get harder as your body fails to conform with your desires but your mind still wants to stay active and continue the challenges of the past 50 years.

The ups and downs of the business have been unpredictable over the last five years. In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Business conditions were brutal. The only people who were busy were making ventilator parts.

Then in 2022, it bounced back unexpectedly and in 2023 it slumped. Inflation accelerated, and the Federal Reserve tried to save the economy by raising interest rates. The professional prediction folks were baffled. They live by numbers and have little grasp of the lives of factory workers and small business owners.

Here we are in the spring of 2024. I have a new lease to sign and workers to pay. 

The stock market just hit an all-time high, an election is six months away between two old unpopular candidates. The climate predictors are continually wrong, and the economy seems to be improving without pushing up inflation. Despite all of the data we have, the ability to predict the future seems worse than ever. That is the beauty of it all.

For my business, the signs have shifted to optimism and action from the lethargy of the past year. I have no idea why, with wars in Europe and the Middle East and elections coming soon.

But I also have learned that when business sprouts for no apparent reason, it is time to listen closely. It does not happen frequently. 

 A few things are quite likely.

In a month, the business will be moving locations.

The Cubs will not win the Pennant this year.

Question: What have been your most difficult moving experiences–physically or emotionally?